Reporting on turnovers and missed kicks in high school football

I agree with this, but I know plenty of writers who will be doing generic play by play for baseball (for ex.) and say that Joe Blow reached first on a throwing error by shortstop Paulie Podunk and scored on Towering Tim's home run.

This is in the third inning of a 10-6 game. Just say Towering Tim hit a two-run home run.

I hate getting the inevitable call from a parent/coach who will say their book lists it as a base hit or a fielding error on the first baseman.

I say if you are going to name the kid, make sure it's important and jibes with the official book.

 

You mean the book kept by some JV kid who missed half of the game?

 

Yes. If that's what you would take if they called it in. It's not an error because you say so.

 

It's not a hit if some JV kid says so either. And if someone called it in, how would you know it's a throwing error?

There are countless threads on this board were official stat keepers are football games don't know how to take stats. Are you saying if we use our own, it's inserting opinion.

If a school cannot even keep a correct tally of runs on the scoreboard, I'm not holding out much hope that the book is even close to being accurate.

 

Whatever. If you can attend all the games and keep all the stats yourself, super.

 

How can a writer write something is an error then if they aren't there?

 

And I've had this debate before on this board. The official book, if established as such, is the official book, regardless of how faulty you think the scorekeeper is.

It isn't an absolute. But if you're going against the official book, you should have a really good reason to. It shouldn't be over a debatable hit/error call.

 

I'm saying that I have has "discussions" with parents and coaches about games stories written by writers at the game naming players who committed errors in play-by-play of game stories. The plays weren't even that critical.

I would prefer that the stories not get into that kind of play-by-play detail on routine scoring. If it's that key and we are naming a kid making an error, it better jibe with the official book -- even if that means leaning on the JV kid who's doing the official book.

My point is that we rely on coaches calling in information every day and we should not choose to disregard that information whenever we feel like it. If JV kid isn't good enough for you when you are at the game, why do you let the team ever call in scores?

 

At my last place of employment, we went against the official book in a game we didn't cover in person.
A softball pitcher had gone two years without allowing an earned run. The coach called in the game and said she didn't give up an earned run again and described the play where a run scored, saying that it was an error that allowed the run to score.
The next day the losing team's coach called to dispute the account we had in the paper. At first we said we went with what was in the winning team's book (which was also the home team) because it was the official book.
At the time, that softball team was very popular in the community and several people from our paper who were not sports reporters (ad people, accountants, news people, printers, etc.) went to the games just to watch them. After the SE conferred with some of the people who were at the game, he decided that the official book was wrong and we ran a correction the next day saying the run was earned and the no earned run streak was over.
I'm not sure if we overstepped our bounds by doing that or not, but it seems to me if we stuck with what was called in, all we needed to tell anyone who complained about us getting it wrong was that we went with what was in the official book.

 

At least bring up discrepancies if you see them. Reporters, at least in this country, don't have to write the party line.

 

This case is different and I applaud your SE. You had a competing scorebook and eyewitnesses and made a tough call.

That's different from just keeping the book on your own and not even caring what might be in the official book.

 

That's it exactly, sp. By making that decision, the SE opened you all up to take the hit. If he hadn't, you always had a valid reason.

"Bring up" discrepancies, fine. But the official book remains the official book. Sometimes, the party line is the deciding factor.